Was There any Rainbow Prior to the Flood?
By G.
IN Gen. ix, 13, God said to Noah, "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth." Infidels profess to see many difficulties in this passage, and argue therefrom that the Bible is not a book from God. Say they, The rainbow is the natural effect of the refraction and reflection of the sun's rays falling on drops of water, and as the same cause always produces the same effect, therefore there had been rainbows from time immemorial. Learned men, partly acknowledging what skeptics say to be true, have endeavored to answer their objection by rendering the original words for "do set," in the above text, "do appoint." This, all must admit does not amount to much, unless we take it in the sense of the old adage, that "a poor reason is better than none." Our view of this place is that the causes which combine to produce a rainbow never existed before the flood, and this gives force to God's language to Noah, "I do set my bow in the cloud," &c. But what pertinence would there be to this institution, and what force would it give to the covenant which the Almighty then entered into with the inhabitants of the earth, if the rainbow had been a common visitor to this world for sixteen hundred and fifty-six years? for this was the earth's age at the flood. We have lately been reading Prof. Bush's view of this subject, and although he differs somewhat from his brother commentators, we think his position is mainly correct. After referring to the common view, and presenting the usual arguments in its support, which he partly admits, he then makes this admission, which is explanation enough. He says: "Yet we incline upon the whole to regard this as the first appearance of the celestial arch. Such we think is the natural impression produced upon the mind of any one who reads the narrative without reference to any existing theory upon the subject, and no one can doubt that the effect would have been far more vivid and striking had this been the first time the splendid sight had met his eye." A little further on he says again: "In fine, as it is impossible to prove that the rainbow had actually ever appeared before the flood, we believe the most interesting light in which this glorious spectacle can be viewed, viz., as a great memento of the divine veracity, has been conceded away to the cavils of infidels; and that by looking upon it merely as an effect of natural causes that have always operated, we shall be apt to lose the force of its moral bearing in connection with the event in which it originated." If it be inquired how the earth received sufficient moisture to cause it to vegetate, if there was no rain before the deluge, we reply, doubtless according to the arrangement which the all-wise Creator established in the beginning. Moses, in giving a synopsis of the creation in Gen. ii, 4-6, says: "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground." Here it is said that before God caused it to rain upon the earth, in the state of innocence, "there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground." And probably it continued to do so till that mighty catastrophe, the flood. The above is a fair scriptural deduction, and those who think that the phenomena of rain and rainbows were common before the deluge, will please bear in mind that the onus probandi lies with them.